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Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The Canterbury Tales (Day 3: Lines 11-15)

Today, we will be examining lines 11-15 of
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales; our
investigation will be focusing only on the original Middle English and how the
passage has been translated. Previous exercises, such as phonetic inscriptions
and scansion, have been omitted for this post and likely many future posts
simply to gain a better focus on the actual text of the CT. Some posts,
however, will feature those exercises, as I have not abandoned them wholly,
just on a day-to-day basis.

But,
at any rate, the text reads:

So priketh hem nature in hir corages—

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kouthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende (3)

A
literal translation would read:

So pricks
them nature in her heart—

Then
desire folk to go on pilgrimages,

And
pilgrims for to seek strange times,

To
distant shrines, famous in separate lands

And
especially from every shire’s end

A
literal rendering of this passage actually makes a decent amount of sense. At
least in compared to the other literal renditions, however. But, even so, we
should examine how professional translators have rendered this passage and if
there is alterations worth commenting upon.

Starting
off with David Wright:

(Nature
so prompts them, and encourages);

Then
people long to go on pilgrimages,

And
palmers to take ship for foreign shores,

And
distant shrines, famous in different lands;

And
most especially, from all the shires (3)

So,
the obvious question first: where is he the mention of ‘ship’ in the original
Middle English? Answer: there is none. Why Wright chooses to translate ‘seken,’
or “to seek” or simply “seek” as “take ship” is baffling. But we can infer that
it is connected to the “foreign shores” (‘straunge strondes’). So, it is hardly
absurd but it is also far from a genuine translation. But, other than that, I
don’t see anything truly worth commenting on as the rest of the translation
appears straightforward.

Moving
on to Peter Tuttle’s translation:

So
pricks them nature in their souls—

Then
folks yearn to go on pilgrimages,

And
pilgrims for to seek strange strands,

To
far aware shires in sundry lands;

And
specially from every shires end (3)

Okay, I’m just
going to say it: I now loathe the amateurish, half-assed, and quite frankly,
lazy and pathetic Tuttle (CT) translation. It is garbage. Why, for God’s sake,
is Tuttle translating ‘strondes’ (or “time”) as “strands”? They are completely different words! Then there
is his retention of aspects of the literal translation; as I said, in this
passage the five lines are actually well-suited for a literal translation, but
they still do not make a lot of sense and there is moments which really take you
out if you attempt to read it as it stands; Tuttle’s nonsense has somehow combined this literal aspect with his strange
insistence on rendering words for their phonetic instead of semiotic quality.
In this respect, he decided to use ‘shires’ twice, despite it only appearing
once and to translate ‘sondry’ as ‘sundry,’ as if the two words
(separate-sundry) had any connection
to one another. Tuttle’s delusional belief that he is making Chaucer more
“comprehensible” (xl) to the modern reader is a pitiful and laughable attempt
at self-aggrandizement. When this investigative project is finished, I look
forward to either burning my copy of Tuttle’s pitiful attempt at translation or
pushing back in my library and never glancing at its horrid, yet ineffectual,
contents again.

Regardless, and
moving on to a translating who, hopefully, has their mind in the right
position, we engage with Ronald L. Ecker’s version:

(So
nature pricks them in each little heart),

On
pilgrimage then folks desire to start.

The
palmers long to travel to foreign strands

To
distant shrines renowned in Sundry lands;

And
specially, from every shire’s end (1)

Nope!
Ecker, unfortunately retains much of the absurd translation which Tuttle
leeched off (Ecker’s translation was published in 1993, Tuttle’s in 2006). Now,
I am willing to compromise that ‘sundry’ is, perhaps, being used in its morally
ambiguous definition in order to render the foreign, and by extension
un-Christian, property of these distant lands. Okay! I accept that wholesale
and was too quick to dismiss it out of hand when I read Tuttle’s version. But
“strands” still makes little sense and appears as an oafish attempt to retain
some rhyming scheme. You could argue that a “strand” is like a moment, an
instance in the sense of a brief microcosm which was split away from the whole
temporal foundation; it is a strand in the sense of a strand of time… but, is
that not a bit too great an undertaking of mental gymnastics? What is wrong
with simply using time, moment, or occasion? For rhyming purposes? If so, why
not use the modern word “stints,” would this not be close to the “st” sound
which translators are obvious attempting to retain while also retaining the
actual semiotic quality as meaning “an outing or journey”? I think so.
Regardless, I understand that at the time of these translations certain
linguistic and professional expectations were to be followed, lest the project
as a whole be disregarded or taken as only a semi-serious attempt at
translation. Even so, the blame only shifts slightly to the publishing and
academic establishment while the actual translator retains blame for their
unwillingness to strike at the heart of Chaucer’s writing.

~

So,
this third investigation is done. I have no more plans to rant and rave, so you
are free to resume whatever your day was like before stumbling upon my odd fits
and ends concerning a medieval poet. Lucky you; I have to return to this the
next day! But, you know, I wouldn’t have it any other way. A testament,
perhaps, to my academic depravity. In any case, I will see you all soon.